Home About Services Campaigns Advocates Fellows Blogs Resources

A Voice For the Voiceless

The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.

The Impact of Service "I look at myself as having the potential to be as strong and caring as the amazing women I met in Kenya." Kate Cummings (Tufts University) volunteered in 2009 as a Peace Fellow for Vital Voices in Africa. For more 2009 feedback click here.

Translate this page:

Resources > Global Issues > On The Record Arc... > Central America -...

Central America - Life After Hurricane Mitch

In 1999, AP visited Honduras and Nicaragua, at the request of Rights Action, to assess civil society’s role in rebuilding after Hurricane Mitch. This series of On the Record - Central America After Mitch is a result of that visit.

Issue 1: Series Launch
Issue 1 introduces Hurricane Mitch and places the disaster into the context of lessening attention on Central America during the post-Cold War area. The hurricane placed Central America back on the radar but, as this issue notes, the attention the region got needs to last in order to prevent a similar disaster in the future.

Issue 2: Honduras in the Eye of the Storm
This issues focuses on the effects of Hurricane Mitch on Honduras, noting that while the storm was not preventable, the deadly effects were for reasons such as environmental degradation, large debt, and global warming.

Issue 3: Paralysis and Panic - The Government's Response
Issue 3 looks at the way the government of Honduras responded to the disaster. There was a general reluctance to involve civil society, inefficiencies and corruption on the part of the government, government violence at refugee settlements and harmful government reforms.

Issue 4: Civil Society Emerges from the Cold War
The lack of a civil society during the Cold War, post Cold War reforms and the subsequent development of a civil society are the topics covered in Issue 4.

Issue 5: Civil Society Flexes its Muscles
This issue shows that while civil society was divided in the 1990s, Hurricane Mitch helped create a common agenda and a single voice for it.

Issue 6: The Limitations of Early Warning
Issue 6 focuses on Nicaragua's early warning system but argues that it is of limited use when a government is not interested in acting on the information and mobilizing communities. Nor does it help those who are living in exposed villages on mountainsides that have been stripped of vegetation in the relentless search for fuel.

Issue 7: Nicaraguan Civil Society
This issue looks at the origins of civil society in Nicaragua and its emergence in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. It also assesses the exciting opportunities facing civil organizations in Nicaragua as the country's polarized political system shows signs of cracking.

Issue 8: The Debt Trap
The focus of this issue is the call from Central American countries for debt cancellation in light of the disaster affecting their countries and the controversy surrounding this topic.

Issue 9: Health in Nicaragua
The first part of Issue 9 deals with the fight over NGO participation in reconstruction while part two focuses on the impact of Mitch on health in Nicaragua. The author accompanies psychologist Martha Cabrera to the scene of the deadly Posoltega mudslide and speaks with some of the survivors about their loss. Secondly, she looks at the weakness of Nicaragua's once-proud health system and explains how this has made Nicaraguans more vulnerable to disease after the hurricane.

Issue 10: Landmines in Nicaragua
Issue 10 addresses how the fight against landmines took a turn for the worse following Mitch. Tens of thousands of mines were dislodged by the water and mud, and settled in new locations, posing obvious dangers.

Back